Books I’ve read

Everything you need for your better future and success has already been written. Jim Rohn

If you’re looking for life-changing material, I recommend the works of Jim Rohn, Viktor E. Frankl, Napoleon Hill, Dale Carnegie, and Derek Sivers.

2018

• The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Defender of the Realm, 1940–1965 by William Manchester

2017

• The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Alone, 1932–1940 by William Manchester
• The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory, 1874–1932 by William Manchester

2016

• Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushner
• The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life by Nick Lane
• Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World by by Stanley McChrystal, Tantum Collins, David Silverman, Chris Fussell

2015

• Stuff Matters: The Strange Stories of the Marvellous Materials that Shape Our Man-made World by Mark Miodownik
• Command and Control by Eric Schlosser
• What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe
• Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager by Michael Lopp

2014

• Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby: An Agile Primer by Sandi Metz
• Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software by Michael T. Nygard
• Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold
• The Particle at the End of the Universe: How the Hunt for the Higgs Boson Leads Us to the Edge of a New World by Sean Carroll

2013

• Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed by Ben R. Rich and Leo Janos
• The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael Singer
• The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — but Some Don’t by Nate Silver
• Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter
• Mortality by Christopher Hitchens
• The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking by Edward B. Burger and Michael Starbird
• On Writing Well by William Zinsser
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
• The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality by Brian Greene
• Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
• How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie
• Tap Dancing to Work: Warren Buffett on Practically Everything by Carol J. Loomis

2012

• Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
• The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development by Chad Fowler
• Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall
• Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker by Kevin Mitnick and William L. Simon
• How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes by Peter D. Schiff and Andrew J. Schiff
• Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman by James Gleick
• The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman by Richard P. Feynman
• What Do You Care What Other People Think?: Further Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard P. Feynman and Ralph Leighton
• Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) by Richard P. Feynman and Ralph Leighton
• Anything You Want by Derek Sivers
• The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt
• Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain
• A Little History of the World by E. H. Gombrich
• The Two-Second Advantage: How We Succeed by Anticipating the Future–Just Enough by Kevin Maney and Vivek Ranadive
• Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens by Christopher Hitchens

2011

• Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World by Michael Lewis
• The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos by Brian Greene
• Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler
• How to Develop Self-Confidence And Influence People By Public Speaking by Dale Carnegie
• End Malaria by Michael Bungay Stanier
• Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson
• How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
• If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit by Brenda Ueland
• Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer
• The Art of Non-Conformity: Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life You Want, and Change the World by Chris Guillebeau
• Before the Big Bang: The Prehistory of Our Universe by Brian Clegg
• Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics by Henry Hazlitt
• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini
• The Startup Game: Inside the Partnership between Venture Capitalists and Entrepreneurs by William H. Draper
• The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business by Josh Kaufman
• Eight Pillars of Prosperity by James Allen

2010

• As a Man Thinketh by James Allen
• Living With Intensity: Understanding the Sensitivity, Excitability, and the Emotional Development of Gifted Children, Adolescents, and Adults by Susan Daniels and Michael M. Piechowski
• The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self by Alice Miller
• The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis
• Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
• Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuk
• Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh
• The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch and Jeffrey Zaslow
• Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry by Marc Benioff and Carlye Adler
• Rework by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson
• What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures by Malcolm Gladwell
• Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days by Jessica Livingston
• Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? by Seth Godin — Review
• Bringing Nothing To The Party: True Confessions of a New Media Whore by Paul Carr
• The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steven Gary Blank
• Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill — Review
• The RSpec Book: Behaviour Driven Development with Rspec, Cucumber, and Friends by David Chelimsky, Dave Astels, Bryan Helmkamp, and Dan North
• Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle by Jim Rohn
• The Richest Man in Babylon by George Samuel Clason — Review

2009

• Eric Sink on the Business of Software by Eric Sink
• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip & Dan Heath
• Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell
• Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing by Mignon Fogarty
• Pragmatic Version Control Using Git by Travis Swicegood
• Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software by Eric Evans
• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell
• Getting Real: The smarter, faster, easier way to build a successful web application by Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson, and Matthew Linderman
• Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware by Andrew Hunt
• The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz
• The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss

Fiction

• Outlander: A Novel by Diana Gabaldon
• Don Tillman Series by Graeme Simsion
• Shogun by James Clavell
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov
• An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
• Paper Towns by John Green
• Looking for Alaska by John Green
• The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
• His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman
• Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
• The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
• Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling

The book you don’t read won’t help. Jim Rohn

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